Slipping Through The Cracks
by lil Miss Mysterious
Summary: He's always been able to get along fine, but sometimes it all comes back, memories slipping through the cracks. This is one of those times where he thinks he's finally lost himself on the inside. (After Angels Take Manhattan, starts Pre Snowmen and continues on through.)
1. Chapter 1

It was always fun to see him dancing across the console room, flipping switches and pulling levers and pushing buttons and generally making a ruckus. The wide domed area was splashed with bright lights and color, and he was splashed with color too-bright red bowtie, light brown tweed, shiny black shoes, pink socks and a chrome watch. Flying around, with not a care in the world, but so much excitement and happiness he was like a coke bottle about to burst into a thousand little bubbles of delight.

Eleven had a secret.

Tik. Tik. Tik.

That's the sound that the console makes when the whole entire TARDIS, every single room, every single hallway, is coated in darkness except for the little guiding lights on the floor. That's the sound of a little clock ticking, keeping track of the time while everyone sleeps, continuously working on and on and on. The artificial night goes on and on and on. Lights out. Everyone's asleep.

Accept someone's not.

Tik Tik Tik.

A long time ago, when the universe was not so different but the people were, Theta Sigma studied at the Academy back on Gallifrey. He sat in class with his group of friends, unaware that one day most of them would try to murder him out of hate. He was a clever boy, not clever like Koschei was with people or Ushas was with science, but clever all the same. The question had come up by the way the most intriguing questions do-slowly, with the root of the subject in mind, but then somehow detouring and spontaneously spouting out of a pupil's mouth.

"What would happen if a Timelord (Or lady) were to live out all their regenerations?" They would die, said the Teacher, unless they had been granted a new cycle of regenerations. Why would someone ask such a simple question?

But what would happen to their brain? What would happen after one thousand, two thousand, three thousand years, ten thousand years? Would they start to go senile? Would their brain rot away, out of their ears?

Tik Tik Tik.

The Teacher said that brain rotting was extremely unlikely, although not entirely impossible, and after a moment of pause said that he wasn't exactly sure what would happen after a couple thousand years. Middle age was somewhere around seven hundred fifty, he supposed, and a thousand seemed to be like a number of early old age, but a couple thousand after thatâ€¦

Was The Teacher himself over one thousand? Did he know anyone who was? Of course he wasn't older than a thousand, and stop asking his age! He didn't know anyone personally, besides, perhaps, a couple of his cousins who had seemed to be around forever, and he'd ask them later.

Was The Headmaster over one thousand?

The Headmaster would be most upset at your impolite question, but as far as he, The Teacher, knows, she is not. He had only heard a legend about a Timelord/lady who lived until ten thousand, and even then he wasn't sure what had happened to him.

Then The Teacher shut his book and told them to stop pushing the subject.

Tik Tik Tik.

Officially he's the Eleventh of the line, Eleven meaning two more Doctors to go, but in actuality he's done, he's the last of his line and the last of his kind. A thousand years, he supposes, a little bit more over a thousand, more like a thousand and two hundred-but time travel messes up a lot of things that are supposed to be timed, like age. He really tries not to think about it, even though now he knows that some Timelords/ladies do make it over a thousand, quite a lot of them, but his thousand years are filled with more than living out life day after day, quietly. He's seen most of the universe now, seen more of it than he ever could if he'd stayed back and hadn't run away.

Most of the time he thinks that's a good thing-that he knows more, much more than what they taught him to know.

But sometimes...When it all comes backâ€¦

Tik. Tik. Tik.

His eyes burn.

Burn from memories that overwhelm him, of the Time War. Of hundreds of thousands of massacres that he couldn't save. The people who he couldn't save from death and the people who he brought death to.

Shot, stabbed, blasted to bits by explosions. Slashed, punched, kicked, torn into pieces.

Melted, frozen, ripped, spiraling out into nothing.

Bleeding, broken, dying, calling out his name for help.

Burning. They're burning. Burning in his mind and his eyes and the tips of his fingertips. The tips of fingers that held a gun and a staser and a bloodied knife. That have saved many but left countless others to unknown fates, to fates he knew would destroy them. Then they would be gone.

Tik Tik Tik.

That's why he didn't look back, either. Always living in the moment. Because eventually, everyone he knew would be reduced to dust. Ashes. Nothing. Molecules of atoms of dust of nothing. An expansive canvas of black death, with the universe collapsing on itself. He would be alone, all alone. He didn't think about it but he did. The word grabbed him with iron hands, painfully forcing him to repeat the word over and over again.

Alone.

Alone.

Alone.

He would be all Alone.

Tik. Tik. Tik.

These thoughts came sometimes, when almost all the lights are out, when he's all by himself in the console room. They forced him to relive every horrifying moment of his life, every regret and every painful memory, every single death. Every single loss of life by his hand, or watched by his eyes. His past caught up with him, then, the most violent parts being shoved down his throat, choking him.

Strangling him.

Every. Not. Breath. Is. Death.

Tik Tik Tik.

Except this time he believes it really is Death, /the/ Death, draining his lungs and closing up his throat, pulling an invisible noose tight around his neck. Every breath he does get is not relief, but poison, stabbing him in the chest. His hearts pound and his body, legs, arms, hands, shake, pale sickly white in the darkened light of the room. There's a roaring in his ears as he beholds the site of blood and death, of bodies strewn about and smoking. His mouth can taste the smoke of the explosions, the taste of blood. The roar in his ears screams, a thousand voices in his ears screaming for mercy, screaming for pain, and he tries to scream with them, his mouth wide open and nothing coming out.

Tik...Tik...Tik...

He's done for. It's over. He can't move. He can't scream.

Tik...Tik...

The images layer over each other until they're unable to be separated, knives each carving a new scar into his hearts. His eyes are wide, his tongue out, his blood is rushing.

But he still. Can't. Scream.

Tik...

Everything's going black, it's all going to hell, he feels his body collapse on itself and-

He screams.

...

He screams and screams and screams, until his throat is raw and aching but he still screams anyway. He screams for the images to go away. He screams for pain, for loss, for sorrow. He screams for every time he has watched silently as planets burned and people withered. For every regret, for every misfortune, he screams. For every drop of blood spilled, he screams.

He screams, screams, until finally he can do no more, he's on his hands and knees, panting for breath.

Tik...

He breathes raggedly.

Raggedly.

Raggedy man, goodbye.

No.

He banishes the thought. He's done. That memory won't haunt him again, at least not now.

The blackness in his vision clears, and he sees a dark and blurry console room. He wipes his eyes, and is surprised to find to find tears in his eyes, running down his face.

He looks down. At least he hasn't pissed his pants.

Tik...Tik..

He clenches his fists. In, out. Breathe, he tells himself, breathe. It's over now, those memories. They've gone back to recesses of his mind, and they won't bother him for a long while. He won't let them bother him. His chest heaves up...and down. Up...and down. With each breath, the memories, the feelings dissipate, losing their hold over him. He's returning to normal. He's becoming himself, The Doctor, again.

Tik...Tik...Tik...

He pulls himself up, using the console to steady himself. Maybe he'll go for a walk today. He hasn't done that for a while. Visit someone, anyone. He hasn't seen Madame Vastra in a while-maybe he'll go check up on her. She's still alive, right? He's got a time machine, of course she is.

Tik. Tik. Tik.

He may be at the end of his run, but he's not ready to die. And certainly not alone. He can't sit down, he's got to get up, he's got to keep moving, to replace those old, terrible memories with new, better ones. He's not ready to move on, but he'll go for a walk. Walks are good. Let's go for a walk. Maybe even a jog, if he doesn't run out of breath.

Tik. Tik. Tik.

He's a Timelord, a ticking clock. He's The Doctor, and he doesn't give up.

No matter what.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time he arrives somewhere in Victorian England, he's solid once again. He's stopped shaking, stopping thinking, andeven a couple times, stopped breathing, long drawn in sighs held inside until finally he remembers to let them free. He's just doing, now. Doing. Not doing fine. Not doing well-not even remotely close to well, but just doing. He's good at doing. Turning on the lights in the console room. Activating the floor lights in the halls leading to the closet. Changing into fresh clothes. Coming back and setting the coordinates for Madame Vastra's home with a steady hand. Doing, doing, doing. He flips a switch, and then another, making up for his lack of childlike enthusiasm with determination and efficiency. Doing. Flip. Doing. Push. Doing. Press.

Eleven is in control now.

He's silenced the ticking clock by turning the time tracking settings from analog to digital. He isn't sure that by purely changing that setting on the little clock (or big clock, since although the clock face attached to the console itself may be small, it's soft ticking can be heard everywhere inside the TARDIS) would silence it, but maybe the old girl decided to do him a favor by silencing the clock, even if she can't shut if off. God knows she's probably sensed his mood by now through their telepathic connection.

The TARDIS seems to hum in reply, a gentle whirr that's like a soft hand on his arm, on his cheek, reminding him even though it's silent, he's not alone. Not yet. He still has her on his side. He presses his fingers to his lips and then back to the console. "Thank you," he whispers, his voice still hoarse from screaming.

There is no reply, as expected, but a warm breeze ruffles his hair. He sniffs, and for a moment is taking by surprise. It smells like summer rain, wet silver trees and soil that sports fresh red grass. It smells like strange flowers, old perfume mixed with the smell of good food and warmth. It smells like home.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmghhhhhhhhh.

Young Theta Sigma peers out the large window from his seat at the table. A field of dark red grass dotted with multicolored flowers greets him, along a bright orange sky and two bright suns. He can see his own backyard, empty except for a few oddly parked TARDISes and an old swingset. After that he can see a forest of silver trees, looking as if they're on fire, and large mountains in the background. The House of Lungbarrow is rather isolated and a bit crowded with Cousins reuniting during the holidays, but he likes it anyway. It's spacious, and the property it's on is also spacious, full of meadows and forests and ponds and creeks, enabling him to explore to his hearts' content. Running, climbing, spinning, absorbing the scenery until he's able to pinpoint even the smallest of details of where everything is. It's a wonderful experience, feeling the wind in your face and hair, your hearts pumping and your body gliding through the fields as the smell of Old Gallifrey consumes you. The sight. The sound. The taste of the air and the feel of the cool, gravelly soil. But most importantly the scent, thousands of particles from the grass and the foliage, purple, black, silver and brown, flowing up your nostrils and your mouth, feeling the top of your throat soaring to the bottom of your hearts. Released again outwards as you exhale, only to flow back in once again.

It feels good to run, to breathe, to live for once, instead of being chained to an Academy desk forced to learn boring facts about rules and regulations and policies and The Way Things Are. No interference; The Way Things Are. Kaleds and Thals killing each other over superiority; The Way Things Are. Planets getting attacked and destroyed for no good reason; The Way Things Are. People dying;The Way Things Are. It's something that's repeated over and over in his classroom, and Theta hates it-If Rassilon and Omega hadn't dared to dream outside The Way Things Are, we wouldn't have the Timelords, now, would we?

Brax tells him to just wait it out. After the first couple years, he says, they manage to cover all the basic official nonsense and dig deeper into the more interesting subjects, like Cultures in Kasterborous & Onwards and The History of The Universe. There's more to life than just The Rules, and even The Academy recognizes this-or at least, that's what he says to stop Theta from ranting, along with giving him a few "interesting" books to keep him busy.

"Can't you see I've got a Universal Law final to study for? I know you think that you've got it hard with the gibberish they feed into your brain at school, but wait till you get to being an /actual/ Academy student. The amount of work they assign is at least a hundred times more."

*Slam!*

And, of course, a brotherly shove right out the door before slamming it in Theta's face.

But Brax was patient, and he was good at pretending to fit the mold. His Teachers always commented on how he almost always got firsts and how good he was in class. It was his ability to be Academia that allowed him to slip in some sarcastic remarks here and there. It even allowed him to manipulate Teachers into giving him a free pass on things like being late to class since he was so "perfect." The ability to be a cynic was treated like a privilege-if you did all your work, were attentive in class, and didn't openly disobey, your negativity was met with a simple rolling of eyes, smile, or even a laugh. (Can you say favoritism?)

Theta wasn't Brax. He couldn't be patient, and he couldn't stand to listen to the long, boring, pointless lectures that the Teachers gave because that's what they were-pointless, and boring. Rules, rules, rules.

Ugh.

Hopefully Brax was right about The Academy Teachers teaching something other than Rules as he got older. It certainly looked like it, from the way Brax's schoolbooks were- "A History of Time and Beyond," "The First TARDIS," "Cultures & Customs Around The Universe," and (Theta especially liked this one) "Gallifreyan Lore-Fact or Fiction?"

In fact, Theta had declined to go out with his Cousins to the nearby shops so that he could get some silent reading time by himself. It's not like they would miss him, anyway-Glospin and his antics were enough proof of that. And he couldn't hang around Innocet for the rest of his childhood eternity-she was great, but she, like Brax, had her Academy studies to attend to. His options of companionship were getting to the point where the only person who wasn't too busy for him was his younger sister, Icyllis-who was a barely a loomling herself. A smart little girl no doubt, but still too little to understand half of what Theta told her. Which, most assured, made deep conversation /extremely/ difficult.

Sigh…

Luckily, the book he was reading was rather entertaining, and distracted him from the eerie silence that came with the House being empty of Cousins. It was called "Similar Worlds," by some old musty Professor. It talked about worlds out in the great black canvas of Space that bore similarities to Gallifrey and it's inhabitants. One particular interesting planet was that of Sol III, or "Earth," as it was called-A puny blue green planet that had nothing much in common with Gallifrey other than one of the dominant species, "humans," had a startling outer physical resemblance to Gallifreyans-from first glance, the two species would've looked almost exactly the same. Except, obviously, they were extremely different-Humans were fragile, one hearted, and short lived. Simple life forms from a middle aged planet progressing at the rate of a worm inching its way across all Time. Gallifreyans, on the other hand, were old and mighty-far advanced in their knowledge of the universe, and known to others to be Lords of Time.

But there was something clever that interested Theta about these otherwise dull sounding sentients. Perhaps because they looked so alike and yet were so different, perhaps because Ulysses seemed to favor them above all other beings for some strange reasonâ€¦

"Theta?"

Startled, Theta looked up from his book and snapped it shut. He was so absorbed in the novel that he hadn't noticed someone was behind him. He turned in his chair, looking behind him and praying it wasn't angry old Satty about to reprimand him again.

"Theta, you don't have to look so scared. I haven't come to punish you-only to see what you were doing." Whew. It was only Penelope. His…mother. Strange word, mother. He didn't know of anyone else who had a mother, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to-Penelope defined 'mother' for him, with her long skirts and wild red hair, her clear voice and her kind smiles. The Mother Of Gallifrey. Weird.

Theta blinked, and then held up the well worn cover of his book. "I was just reading, Miss Penelope." He didn't dare call her mum while they were at the House, and definitely not mummy. Someone might overhear. Someone might stir up trouble. Ulysses and Penelope were married, and had adopted the three of them-Brax, Theta, and Icyllis, as "their" children, and acted as a "family," but never had sexual reproduction produced the three children. Timelords couldn't even have children with themselves, let alone with other species…

At least, that was the official story.

Theta turned his thoughts back to Penelope. Her hands were stained blue, and smelled vaguely of-

"Are you making pudding?" He looked hopefully up at her. Penelope smiled on of her kind smiles back at him.

"I have been. It should be ready by the time your Cousins come back from their trip to the shops. Although," Penelope's eyes took on a mischievous glint, "I might give you a taste before they come." Theta jumped up from his chair, ran and hugged her. "Oh, thank you thank you thank you!" He buried his face into her apron, breathing in the fruity scent. He could hear her hearts-or rather, single, lonely heart beat as she chuckled at his enthusiasm. "Oh, Thete."

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmghhhhhhhhh.

The sound of the TARDIS's familiar whir snaps him out of the flashback. Theta-No, The Doctor, The Eleventh Doctor-freezes, his hands over the console, trying to remember what he was doing before he went to Flashback land. Who-Ah, yes. Madame Vastra. He was steering the TARDIS before-before-

He rubbed his eyes fiercely before taking a deep breath and noisily spitting it back out. He wasn't about to cry over a happy memory from his childhood. He wasn't about to get overly emotional about a triggered memory that had brought him some sort of comfort, yet at the same time a sense of loss and longing. He wasn't about to go into shakes again, have another one of those...fits...again. He had had one, and one was quite enough, thank you very much!

He begins to dart around the console, checking the console's computer. To his surprise, the TARDIS seemed to have put itself on autopilot while he was reminiscing (if you could call it that). Or maybe his fingers had enough mind of their own to do what his mind could not-focus on the present.

He scans the console computer again, his mind less clouded this time, and notes that he's managed to land in Victorian England, 1842-ish. He is, however, a bit farther away from his intended target than he had hoped-about ten miles south of London. Oh, well, a bit of a walk. He wanted a walk in the first place, anyway, although this one's a just a tad bit longer than he wanted. Glancing at the console one last time, giving his silent thanks to her, the TARDIS, for taking him thus far, he walks out the door. A cold wind slaps him in the face, snow shards attacking his skin and drowning his shoes, but he continues walking, breathing in the cold air. A little cold and ice never stopped anyone, did it? Certainly not countless commoners of the time on their way to work! Certainly not children from enjoying the day! Certainly not The Doctor! The Doctor made the cold run away!

Yes he did...yes he did...with his own Oncoming Storm, yes he did…

He shakes his head, and begins to pick up his pace. The frigid climate and the coldness stab at his lungs, his hearts, and clears his head. He sniffs the air, once, twice, picking up the scent of London and following it like a bloodhound on the trail. He'd see Madame Vastra, say hello, chat with her and Jenny, check up on Strax to make sure he hadn't blown anything up, have some tea, and then...and then…

Wander London? Return to his TARDIS?

Visit someone else? The first option seems more plausible than the other two. Returning to his TARDIS would remind him of his loneliness, and although the old girl try as she might, she couldn't fully take away his sense of grief. Visiting someone else was also out of the question. Visiting Vastra was a challenge for him enough as it was, and to visit his old companions...Well, some of them might welcome him with open, inviting arms...but…

It would only remind him of what he had lost. Of what he had failed to keep.

Amelia...Rory...Oh God, dear God, the last straws drawn to make him finally buckle under the weight of his own mind.

He shakes his head again, to clear his mind it of thoughts and hair of snow. No. No. He's The Doctor. The Doctor doesn't give up. The Doctor pulls through. The Doctor. Keeps. Moving. That's what he's doing-Moving.

Step. Step. Step. Step.

Through the ice and snow and wind he goes on the country road.

Step. Step. Step. Step.

To London. England. To Vastra. To Tea. Nothing more. Nothing less.

But it's hard not to notice as he walks, that his worst fear has once again come true.

For once more, he's coming to tea...

Alone.


End file.
